Needless to say these ramblings are personal reflections and do not in any way represent official policy of the Fédération Protestante de France, my employer, nor of the churches I'm a minister of, the United Reformed Church and the Eglise Réformée de France.

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2008 was the international year of languages, the international year of the potato and the year for the protection of the frog. 2009 is the international year of reconciliaiton, the international year of astronomy, the Calvin year, the St Paul year and no doubt much more besides. Enjoy it all.2010 was the UN year of biodiversity and the year of the 100th anniversary of the Edinburgh mission conference2011 is the international year of forests - protect the trees and plant some folks!

Sunday, 9 September 2007

Reflecting on this meeting is quite difficult. I never once got to the plenary tent, nor to a fringe event, nor to worship - not much liturgy so far in of life and laughter...Yet through the press conferences, documents, the website and journalists questions - as well as my nightly forays into Sibiu's drinking establishments - I did get a sense of what was going on. There was some anger amongst Protestants at part of the content of the final message - at the last moment a phrase on respecting human life "from conception to the end of natural life" was added, this has since been changed further to the slightly more acceptable "from the beginning of life to natural death". In a quiet moment in the press room this morning we managed to discuss this between Catholic and Protestant colleagues, which was good and important. There is a plurality of ethical positions within most of our churches, yet it tends to be only Protestant churches who will give voice to these different perspectives publicly. It is too late today for me to begin to write about abortion, cloning and assisted death but I must try and return to those themes at a later date in this blog.I wondered whether sometimes it is difficult for Protestants in ecumenical gatherings of this kind to give voice to a different ethical perspectives, for fear of upsetting the ecumenical apple cart.I'm glad that some of the ordained women attending the meeting did get to meet - simply to meet and talk and share together, no formal declaration was written but a great photo was taken, just a shame I couldn't get there.

Nevertheless I remain shocked at how few women were in prominent roles at the assembly - Archbishop Anastasios and Bishop Margot Kässmann were in some way in agreement that this represents a certain reality of where the churches in Europe are at the moment. Despite mention of gender in the closing message there was no reference at all to the issue of women's ordination, despite massive applause in the plenary tent when mentioned.Reading the my UK newspaper online this morning I cam across an article entitled the new feminists which did cheer me up rather. However, it ends like this:"What makes you angry?It makes me angry that violence against women is so endemic. It not only irritates me, it horrifies me. It causes more death and disability worldwide among women aged 15-44 than cancer, malaria, traffic accidents or war."I suppose many in both church and society still hope that domestic violence will stay at home, I am still shocked at how easily we brush it under the carpet. Another subject I must return to in more detail - domesticating issues does not mean we are making them safer.So where next for ecumenism? Will there be any point in having an EEA4?The stewards in their goodbyes wrote out loud and clear "We didn’t come here to repeat what others have said before !"Somehow we must find a new way forwards for ecumenical gatherings. Will it be enough to simply meet, pray, talk, celebrate and do things together, without thinking that there has to be a message written and agreed to during the meeting?Metropolitan Gennadios, who was plainly delighted to receive one of the t-shirts from the stewards saying "H.E. metropolitan Gennadios started as a steward", said at the press conference that EEA3 is only now beginning, as we all go home, returning home is the start.With pilgrimage we tend to have the idea that it is about reaching the destination but actually it is much more about taking the experience home, embedding something experienced here in a new way of being ecumenical at home. If we manage to really put that into practice then there might be a way forwards for ecumenism beyond hollow promises and compromised lengthy statements.

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About Me

Jane

My name is Jane Stranz. I was born and brought up in Britain and am an ordained minister of the United Reformed Church, a small non-conformist church. For over 10 years I worked as a parish minister in the Eglise Réformée de France in Dunkerque, Chambéry and Ferney-Voltaire. Fom July 2002 to October 2011 I led the language service of the World Council of Churches in Geneva. Currently I'm working on a two year mission on ecumenical relations, inter-religious dialogue and inter-cultural ministry with the Fédération Protestante de France based in Paris. It's going to be exciting and a steep learning curve. I'm married to Stephen Brown a journalist, researcher and theologian who works at Gobethics.net. Over the next two years we'll see how we manage a commuting marriage between Paris and Ferney Voltaire. Since 1999 I've been living with multiple sclerosis, sounds rather noble but really means I just live in denial and inject interferon b three times a week and count myself very lucky to live in a country with a great health care system.